June 1, 1977

Ties That Bind U.S., Britain Fascinating

Tracing the American Bicentennial from the shores of Great Britain gives one a new perspective on U.S. history - something like looking through the other end of a telescope.  Events so familiar to us from our textbooks are viewed differently on the other side of the Atlantic.

The United States is built on English models, of course, and our roots are more intimately entwined than most Americans realize.  This broadening of historical vision is a travel experience both educational and entertaining.

Having just returned from a month touring the British Isles in search of American traces, I view my native country with new appreciation.

The ties that bind us to our "mother country" are so numerous and varied that a book could - and should - be written about them.  Following are just a few examples of American men and events that had their beginnings in Great Britain in ways generally unmentioned in the history books.

THE PILGRIMS left tracks all over England before they emigrated to the New World to begin serious and sustained colonization.

Their trail begins in the Southwark section of London nearly a century before they stepped onto Plymouth Rock.  As a logical expression of the Protestant Reformation, dissenters in Southwark defied the command of Queen Elizabeth for religious "uniformity."

For failing to conform, dissenters were imprisoned in a little stone building known locally as the "Clink" for the noise of its cell doors.  The term still survives as a synonym for prison.

This may have been a tactical error by the crown, for while in the Clink the dissenters formed a church which was to hold them together thereafter and serve as model for the Puritan movement.

They called themselves "saints" of "The Gathered Church." The term "Pilgrim" was not applied until long after their arrival in America.  There is an active Pilgrim Church in Southwark today, the direct descendent of the original congregation.  It is located near the Clink which still stands.

At Scrooby, radical Protestants led by William Brewster attempted to emigrate to Holland in defiance of royal prohibition.  They were betrayed by a Dutch ship captain, imprisoned in the Boston Guildhall and tried for heresy.  The cells where Brewster, William Bradford and other leaders were held are still intact.

The saints - the Pilgrims of American fame - reorganized at Immingham.  A monument of Massachusetts granite memorializes their eventual departure for Holland and then the New World via port calls at South Hampton and Plymouth, England.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN went to London as a young man to settle there as a printer.  He took a job in a print shop that had been a chapel in the Church of St.  Bartholomew before suppression of the churches by King Henry VIII.

The night life temptations were too much for the 18-year-old Franklin.  He spent all his earnings on prostitutes, much to his own chagrin.  After two years he returned to America where he could reorder his life and "save some money."  The printing shop shortly after was restored to the church where it serves once again as a chapel.

Franklin returned to England many years later, before the War for Independence, as agent for the American colonies.  His attraction by the ladies apparently had not dimmed for he was a guest several times of the Hell's Fire Club which met in a complex of caves at West Wycomb.  The group was comprised of many highly-placed English leaders who liked to discuss politics and philosophy in the subterranean chambers.  On occassion, however, they brought in "well disposed wenches" for a genuine orgy.

CAERNARVON CASTLE is the home of the Prince of Wales and the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.  Americans take pride in the courage of the Colonists at Bunker Hill, but few know that it was the Fusiliers from Caernarvon - led by their goat mascot -that charged up the hill.  Their American campaign flag still hangs in the Fusilier ward room.

EDINBURGH CASTLE in Scotland was the assigned station of Major Patrick Ferguson in 1776.  There he invented the breech-loading, rifled-barrel musket.  He commanded a special corps trained in its use.  He was sent with his unit to America to test his new weapon under battle conditions.  The rifle worked fine, but Ferguson was killed during the battle of Kings Mountain in 1780.  An original rifle (and, incidentally, the pocket watch of John Paul Jones) is on display.

JOHN PAUL JONES was a native Scot who sympathized with the Americans.  The French gave him a captured warship which they named the Bon Homme Richard in honor of Benjamin Franklin whom they admired as the author Poor Richard.  Jones engaged the Serapis off Flamborough Head and declined to surrender his sinking ship with the famous words, "I have not yet begun to fight!"

While thousands of Englishmen stood on the cliff and watched, Jones grappled the Serapis, boarded her and captured the crew minutes before the Richard sank.  That wreck has recently been discovered and efforts are underway to raise the remains.

Other fascinating stories involve the grave of POCOHONTAS at Gravesend, the death mask of TOM PAINE at Thetford and remains of the MAYFLOWER at Jordans.

But I leave these for your own discovery.

Author: Lindsey Williams